15. สามบทเรียนจากหนังสือเล่มนี้
1. โอกาสที่คุณจะทุกข์จากการมองตนเองที่ผิดพลาดนั้น มีค่อนข้างสูง (The chances of you suffering
from a mistaken identity are quite high)
2. วันที่เลวร้ายและความยากลาบากในเส้นทางสู่ความสาเร็จ เป็นส่วนหนึ่งของกระบวนการที่คุณต้อง
ยอมรับ (Bad days and hardship on the way to success are a part of the process that you must accept)
3. กาจัดความกลัวและใช้ศักยภาพสูงสุดของคุณ ในก้าวไปสู่ความฝันของคุณ (Kill fear and embrace
your highest potential by taking that jump towards your dreams)
Dr. Stan Beecham is a Sport Psychologist and Leadership Consultant based in Roswell, Georgia. A frequent speaker and presenter, Beecham is also the director and founding member of the Leadership Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Today, his work with collegiate, Olympic, and professional athletes from many sports has afforded him an insight into the minds of great competitors that only few have had the good fortune to gain. Beecham has taken his wisdom into the business world as he develops and creates leadership development programs for corporate clients.
Our mind is the single most powerful tool in achieving performance of any kind. It’s an undebatable fact that the brain controls the body. Our mind is therefore responsible for everything the body does, whether it’s good or bad, much like software controls a computer.
Training the mind to become an asset and participate in achieving success, rather than standing in the way of it, is essential in every field of activity. For this reason, Elite Minds talks about strengthening the brain to become the competitive edge that you need to get ahead in life, instead of letting it become an obstruction in your path.
Most elite athletes—from golfers to gymnasts, placekickers, and baseball pitchers—tend to be very focused, disciplined, and perfectionistic. Their belief is that the desire to be “perfect” will end up making them better. Unfortunately, this is not always true. More often than not, the desire to be perfect actually hinders performance.
When we try to be perfect, we assume that success equals not making any mistakes, when in fact, success is your response to the mistake. People who tend to be perfectionists do not respond well to adversity or defeat. Their belief is “If I’m doing it correctly, there will be no struggle or failure.”
Not understanding that failure is part of the journey of success will lead to more failure—not perfection. Perhaps the best and easiest way to define success is this: Fall down 100 times, get up 101.
We must accept that every now and then, we will have a bad day. The ability to accept these fluctuations in performance allows athletes to remain fully engaged in their training and keep their goals high.
How you function during a good day does not define your character. It’s how you function during a bad day that is the true test. In order for you to reach your potential, you must know how you respond to poor performance. This is critical information you simply cannot move forward without.
If perfect is not the goal, what is? It’s simple: Do your best. That’s it. Each and every day, make it your intention to do the very best you can with what you have that day.
Remember: The goal is not to be perfect. It’s to do your best and recover quickly from failure.
Beecham believes the degree of success you achieve and how you perform is 100% mental. The mind is in charge of the body. Brain = software. body = hardware. We are mistaken if we focus on talent and experience, which are not enough.
Is your mind an asset or an obstruction to your performance? Truth is few of us much understanding of what we really believe about ourselves and the world around us. ‘What you believe about yourself and your world is the primary determinant to what you do and ultimately how well you do it’.
Unconscious learning leads to unconscious behavioral change in turn leading to our unconscious habits.
Confidence is another way of describing our belief systems.
Is confidence a thought or a feeling? Most feel it as an emotion but when you become conscious of confidence it is really a thought. To improve confidence, you need to work at the conscious level with confidence as a thought. When you realize you have negative and false beliefs about yourself you can start replacing these with a more positive view.
When people seek out a psychologist or psychiatrist its usually because they want to feel different. But need to address the underlying thoughts.
Importance of intentions. Why before what and how. Goals are about what and how, but intentions address the why?
Problem with most goal setting is we play it too safe. Write the goal your 100% sure you can hit.
Re-write it at 90, 80, 70 – how good do you want to be? Are you nervous is there adrenaline, does this thing have your full attention re-write at 60% – ‘That’s your goal?’. If it does not scare you, it’s not worth being a goal.
Also need to kill plan B, if your planning plan B, your planning to fail. ‘Kill plan B or it will kill you’
The myth of 110%.
There is a correlation between effort and performance but not always a positive one. Need to balance mental and physical effort.
In a flow state, (quiet mind) physical effort can feel effortless.
Effort often thought about in terms of resistance but often at our best its more about acceptance of what is rather than resistance. Go with the grain.
Each day ask have I given my best and taken a step towards my goal.
‘Setting expectations. ‘Everyone wants a medal, but only those who truly believe they will get a medal have a chance. Wanting a medal is a conscious desire, expecting to medal is an unconscious’
It’s not luck but your expectation that determines success
‘Expectation dictates performance. Everyone wants to win, but only a few expect to win’.
No such thing as individual performance: Building teams
Recruit and select the right people
Develop strong friendships (trust & relationships)
Create a shared value system
Fight without hurting each other
Cultivate strong leaders
Clearly define team goals
3 Primary components in addressing performance, belief, thought and behavior. When these are strongly aligned performance is high
Beliefs are critical – where do they come from
Thought is conscious usually a by-product of beliefs. (Easier to change your thoughts than your beliefs. Most effort should be put here and ultimately you can change your unconscious beliefs through your conscious thoughts)
Behavior – what we do
When changing any one of these you will feel discomforted.
As per the title of the book, Beecham tells us that it’s MINDS that make the difference in sustained high levels of performance—creating a competitive edge and maximizing success.
Big Ideas we explore include your case of mistaken identity (you're greater than you think), the curse of perfection (remember to play poorly well), the true meaning of the word "compete" (= "to strive WITH" not against) and of the word "contest" (= "to make a promise"!) your ultimate opponent (fear!!) and the ultimate question: To go or not to go (Answer: GO!!!).
Three favorite lessons from the book:
1. The chances of you suffering from a mistaken identity are quite high.
2. Bad days and hardship on the way to success are a part of the process that you must accept.
3. Kill fear and embrace your highest potential by taking that jump towards your dreams.
Lesson 1: Achieving your potential might be delayed by your mistaken identity.
What if you haven’t even met your best self? Chances are, no one has! Leading this hypothesis further, it may look like no one really knows you, including yourself. However, that’s not a bad thing necessarily.
Not living your life to its highest potential is a waste of talent and it’ll likely make you feel miserable. That’s how you know that you don’t know your true self just yet. We are much more than we think we are. As humans, we have a purpose to fulfill, a mission to commit to, and talents to exploit.
However, we’re all brought to this world to fulfill this quest, not knowing how to, or even without knowing what the final destination is. One thing is for sure: until we reach that stage, we don’t really know ourselves. We rarely understand the power of a conscious mind.
Your mind is you, and that’s the only superpower you need to overcome obstacles and hardship, and therefore achieve your potential. Understanding that is the first step. And then strengthening your mind to look at the world objectively is the quest you must fulfill.
The fulfillment of all your goals is a direct result of your mind’s action over your body.
When that stage is reached, you’ll finally find your true self. Anything below your best self is a mistaken identity, and you have to live with this idea in order to achieve success.
Lesson 2: Challenging times are part of the road to success.
The trend of perfectionism and high-performance anxiety is taking over the world, and it’s driving people insane, unfortunately. Perfectionism makes people think that nothing they’ll ever do is good enough for as long as they encounter failure and bad days. Wrong!
Those days are a natural part of the process. No successful individual got to the top without encountering hardship on the way. Even once you achieve your goal, you’ll still have bad days. It’s not part of your persona, it doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. But it’s simply a universal rule of life.
So how many bad days are we talking about? Well, everyone’s life is different and we all must face our own demons. But studies on the best athletes in the world indicate that even they have between three and six bad days a month. The best thing to do about it is nothing! Accept failure as a lesson and hardship as a natural part of life. Free yourself from the curse of perfectionism!
Lesson 3: Greatness arrives in your life when you learn how to kill fear.
Fear is the biggest opponent in achieving our dreams. In life, other people often tell us to be rational, realistic, and careful. This type of advice prevents us from doing something courageous and great. No one made something memorable out of fear. And this concept goes back to ancient philosophy.
Aristotle believed that those who conquer their fear win in life. In fact, he said that courage is the virtue to live by. And that only by being brave in your endeavors and chasing your end goal you can reach the state of eudaemonia. A state of pure happiness, achievement, and self-fulfillment.
Therefore, another step to mental toughness is conquering fear and chasing your dreams despite the uncomfortable position it puts you in.
Help yourself do so by looking for extrinsic motivation, getting excited about the journey ahead, and going for whatever scares you despite your instinct telling you otherwise.
Elite Minds talks about the importance of training your mind to help you and stop self-sabotage by using mental toughness to achieve goals. Conquering fear, going for whatever it is that you want, achieving your higher purpose, and embracing failure, are all major aspects the book discusses.
Reading this remarkable piece will teach you valuable ideas from ancient philosophy to modern studies about the importance of training your mind and embracing the winning mindset in your journey to success.